Best Laid Plans
by k4writer02
Summary: Jenny plans what to do if she ever needs to get rid of a body. Then it all goes to hell. Musings based on the 102 preview


Title: Best-Laid Plans

Author: Kate, k4writer02

Characters: Jenny Reilly, OFC (no pairings)

Disclaimer: Please, if I owned the Black Donnellys I wouldn't be writing fanfic about them, would I?

Rating: PG

Summary: Jenny plans what to do if she ever needs to get rid of a body. Then it all goes to hell.

Author's Note: This was a little sparked by the joke "Friends help you move. Best friends help you move bodies." It got me wondering about Jenny and the Donnellys, so this little piece came out.

I've only seen the pilot and the preview for tomorrow's episode, but this was sparked by the image of Jenny scrubbing something and crying.

Lizzie, Jenny's cousin from the suburbs, lounged across Jenny's bed with an issue of _Seventeen_. The girls were supposed to be alike because their mothers were sisters and they were about four months apart in age, but in actuality, they had as much in common as a dog and a cat. Both are four-legged furry mammals; both were two-legged pretty girls. They appear to be similar if you look only at the surface—fur and four legs, or dark hair, porcelain skin and blue eyes.

The similarities ended there.

"Ooh!! This one looks like fun!" Lizzie bounced on the bed. "Jenny, here, it's to find out who your best friend is."

"That's easy." Jenny folded the laundry out of the basket. "Tommy, Jimmy, Kevin, and Sean."

"Oh, come on." Lizzie begged, "You have to play by the rules. You can't have four best friends. And they can't be boys!"

Lizzie was visiting that summer because she was working for her aunt and uncle at the diner, alongside Jenny. They worked as many hours as the state allowed minors to work, and then they spent time with Jenny's friends. They shared a bedroom in the Reilly's apartment.

The girls didn't know if the constant togetherness was supposed to foster the sisterly "affection" their mothers exhibited when in the same state, or if only the strongest was supposed to survive till the end of the summer.

So far, the familiarity had bred contempt with a few fringe benefits—Jenny had learned how to tame her hair into a sleek mane, how to shave her knees without cutting them, and what outfits to wear to emphasize her slim waist. Lizzie learned how to glare down wise crackers, look the other way when paper sacks were traded under tables, and throw a right hook that would discourage men with bad intentions.

"OK, quiz me." Jenny sighed, because she was tired of resisting Lizzie's perkiness.

"Alright, before I ask the questions, I ask one question to determine who your best friend is."

"I already told you—,"

Lizzie interrupted her. "Okay, if you came home, and there was a thief, and you killed him by accident, who would you call to help you move the body?"

Jenny paused. "What kind of question is that?" She asked, clutching at an apron, scenarios flashing through her mind. "How do you kill someone by accident? Why's he robbing me? Is he cracked out, or is it a grudge thing? Do I have a gun? A knife? Did I get him in the back, or the front?"

"Oh my god, it's like, pretend. It shows you who you really trust." Lizzie argued. "The person you really trust is your best friend."

"Then it's a stupid question. It doesn't show you who you really trust. It shows who you think is competent to handle bodies." Jenny argued.

"Answer the question." Lizzie insisted.

Jenny blew her bangs out of her eyes. "OK, first I would call Jimmy, but only cause I think he'd have an idea about how to transport it and where to take it. Then I would call Kevin and Sean to be my alibi. Then I would call Tommy to bring me bleach, because he runs enough errands for the diner that no one would look twice at him bringing cleaning supplies up here. I'd let Jimmy and Tommy handle moving the body, cause people are used to Jimmy going around, wherever, whenever. And Tommy can talk his way around anyone in this neighborhood. While they were gone, I'd put on some gloves and I'd bleach the hell out of this apartment making sure that there wasn't any kind of evidence left. Like I said, it's a stupid question."

Lizzie flinched. "Fine. You've got four best friends." She settled back with a pout, and even Jenny understood that her feelings were hurt.

Jenny shrugged one shoulder. What answer was there to that?

Lizzie flipped past the quiz, then made one more gambit "You've…thought a lot about it, seeing as it's such a stupid question."

Jenny released the apron she'd been twisting. "Well it doesn't hurt to have a plan."

She'll remember this conversation when she's twenty-four and scrubbing the stairs to Tommy's walkup. She'll remember it as the bleach makes her eyes sting, remember it when she cries, blurring the sight of red blood dissolving under the onslaught of tinged water. The tears and the purifying bleach will spill out like her hopes, like her faith.

She'll repeat the words "evidence" and "alibi" and "plan" to herself as she gags on the antiseptic smell of bleach, as she scrubs to make sure nothing, no hair, no skin, no blood is stuck in a groove, waiting for someone to discover it.

She'll whisper "plan" the most.

Helen is at the hospital, watching machines breathe for her baby.

Jimmy boosted a truck, killed an Italian, and went to rehab.

Sean's in the hospital. Tommy and Kevin did something they can't even tell her about. And Jenny knows, in some way, that Tommy lost a piece of himself this night.

That wasn't in her plan.

The boys are in the apartment scrubbing off whatever's left of whoever's blood is on the stairs and they don't seem to have a plan. No alibis. No reasonable excuse for hiding here, instead of keeping vigil at their baby brother's bedside.

Jenny's the only one following a plan.

Her plan is "do whatever it takes to keep the Donnellys safe."

She hopes it doesn't all go to hell if she has to choose a Donnelly.

Completed March 4, 2007


End file.
